I'm not sure if this is the right place for this; but if a formation of our F16s (or your Tornados, for that matter) is scrambled to intercept an airliner, do they use a civilian squawk?
I suppose they could do this to be visible on the ATCOs screen and TCAS, or perhaps on the other hand it's better not to in case there really are bad guys up front who might get twitchy if they get a TCAS alert for two blips closing in fast.
I guess I've just answered my own question
, but is there someone on here who can provide some insight into this?